Eleanor was thoroughly confused by now. “Emma? Harry’s sister? What in the world-”
“You do not know?” Rhiannon exclaimed, as always turning her head unerringly toward the sound of Eleanor’s voice. “But how could you? The king married Emma off to Prince Davydd last year. Ranulf and I are attending the king’s Christmas Court at Windsor, and when she learned of our plan, Emma asked to accompany us. It is a bit awkward, what with her husband and mine loathing each other! But we could hardly refuse her, for she is Ranulf’s niece, after all. And it turned out to be bread cast upon the waters, for when we reached Clarendon and I found out it was only four miles from Sarum, she was willing to come with me after Ranulf…”
She let the words trail off, but Eleanor had no trouble finishing the sentence for her. “After Ranulf refused,” she said, and smiled to show it did not matter before remembering that smiles were wasted upon Rhiannon. “That was kind of Emma, for I am delighted to see you. But…but why are you this far south? If Harry is holding his Christmas Court at Windsor, why are you so deep in Wiltshire?”
Rhiannon did not answer right away, alerting Eleanor that the answer would not be welcome. “The king is at Winchester now,” she said. “We will be catching up with him there, and then going on together to Windsor.”
Eleanor fell silent. Sarum was only about twenty-five miles from Winchester. Bishop Jocelin had told her that Hal had returned with Henry to England, so this was the closest she’d been to one of her sons in more than two years. Why had Hal not tried to see her? Richard would have, even if it meant scaling the castle walls in the dead of night. Rhiannon was looking troubled, and she roused herself, saying lightly, “Of course you are not really riding all the way from Wales to visit with Harry, are you? Your son Morgan is still in his household, no?”
Rhiannon laughed. “You’ve caught us out,” she admitted. “Morgan is the lure-” She stopped suddenly, head cocked to the side. “What was that noise? Are we alone?”
“No, not exactly. That was Edith, my maid. We can speak freely in front of her, for she speaks no French, only English.” Eleanor’s smile was wry. “She is useful at times, but as a companion, she leaves much to be desired. I have wine, Rhiannon. Would you…” Getting a polite refusal, she leaned over and covered the other woman’s hand with her own. “Tell me of my children.”
Rhiannon did. Joanna was still at Devizes with Constance and Alys, but she was sure the girl would be at Windsor for the Christmas Court, and so would John. Hal and Marguerite would be there, too, of course. Richard and Geoffrey would be holding their own courts, in Poitou and Brittany. They had both enjoyed considerable success in the field, she reported, knowing how proud Eleanor would be. Richard had captured the rebel stronghold of Castillon-sur-Agen that past August after a two-month siege, and the Countess of Chester had written to Ranulf that Geoffrey had Eudo de Porhoet on the run.
“The Countess of Chester,” Eleanor said softly. “Is she well?” And when Rhiannon affirmed it, she forced herself to ask, even though she dreaded the answer. “What of her son? Is Hugh still being held prisoner?”
“No,” Rhiannon said. “He was freed last year, in October, I believe, although his lands have not been restored to him yet.”
“Gratia Dei,” Eleanor whispered, closing her eyes for a moment, and Rhiannon, who was as perceptive as her husband, squeezed her hand affectionately.
“I do have some sad news, though,” she said. “Ranulf’s brother died in July.”
“Rainald? I am sorry to hear that,” Eleanor said, and she was; she’d always had a liking for Henry’s cheery, brash uncle. “Was he long ill?”
“No, it was sudden. He’d been with the king at Woodstock a fortnight earlier, and seemed quite well. He was no longer young, of course.”
“None of us are,” Eleanor said with a sigh. “So…my sons have truly been forgiven, are back in Harry’s good graces?” And she felt both relief and a prickling of resentment when Rhiannon assured her that family peace had indeed been restored. “Rhiannon, I will never forget your kindness in coming to see me, especially since you had to defy Ranulf to do it. I hope to God I have not caused harm to your marriage.”
“You need not worry, my lady,” Rhiannon said with a quick smile. “It is true that Ranulf was not pleased with me. But he knows full well that Welshwomen are not as submissive and docile as our English sisters. We have minds of our own. And I was not going to let him stop me from visiting you. You spoke of my ‘kindness.’ Well, I am only repaying yours to me, during those months when I was stranded at your court whilst our husbands were chasing about France.”
“Ah, yes,” Eleanor said. “I remember. I was with child-Geoffrey-so that was seventeen years ago. When we got word that Harry’s brother Geoff had died of a sudden, Harry and Ranulf hastened over to Rouen to comfort Maude. They were supposed to return within a fortnight, but it was nigh on four months ere Ranulf came back to England and another month after that ere I was reunited with Harry for our Christmas Court…”
She was quiet for a time, remembering. The men had trooped into the solar at Winchester Castle, muddied and boisterous and jubilant after a day’s good hunting. For a moment, she thought she could actually hear echoes of their raucous laughter on the wind. Henry had pulled her into his lap as he told Ranulf of Thomas Becket’s recent, spectacular entry into Paris, vastly amused by his chancellor’s flair for the dramatic. When she’d asked for a cushion for her aching back, he’d obliged with a grin, saying to the others, “Imagine how she’d order me around if I were not a king.”
Rhiannon was sorry she’d reminded the queen of a time when her marriage was a source of joy, not misery. Hoping to distract Eleanor from memories that served only to hurt, she said hastily, “I was so homesick for Wales, missing Ranulf and feeling like a stranger in an alien land. If you’d not been so good to me, I truly do not know how I would have endured those wretched months.”
“Your visit today eclipses any kindnesses I may have shown you,” Eleanor assured her. “Rhiannon…may I ask you about your blindness? But if you’d rather not talk about it-”
“Other people are the ones who have difficulty speaking of it, not me.”
“You were not born blind, were you?” Eleanor asked, hoping that her memory was not playing her false.
“No, I was not. I lost the sight in one eye when I was eight after I was hit by an ice-encrusted snowball. But within a year, I lost the sight in my other eye, too. My father consulted every physician in Wales, and they all said the same. They did not know why my other eye should also fail, but it was often the case with such injuries, and nothing could be done. My mother would have wrapped me in soft wool, coddled me till her last breath, but my father, bless him, would have none of that. He insisted that I ‘defy the dark,’ live my life as if I were still sighted. I learned to play a harp, to sew and do household chores, even to ride a horse, finding ways to compensate for my lack of sight. It was not easy, but I was so lucky, my lady, that my father was so stubborn!” A fleeting smile touched her lips. “The blind are often hidden away from the world, as if they are a cause for shame.”
Eleanor had listened intently, and was quiet for a few moments. “I’ve met few people as calm, as contented as you, Rhiannon. You always seemed to me like a serene small island in a turbulent sea. I often wondered how you’d achieved that sense of peace, given how severely you’d been tested by the Almighty.”
By now Rhiannon had grasped which way the wind was blowing. “Acceptance of life’s setbacks is never easy, my lady. For me, the hardest time came when I reached marriageable age, when I realized that few men would be willing to take a blind wife. But my father never let me wallow in self-pity, and his own life was so beset with tragedy that he’d earned the right to speak on the subject.”
Eleanor knew very little of Rhiannon’s father, save that he’d been crippled some years ago when he’d been trampled by a runaway horse. “What losses did your father suffer?”
“His brothers and sisters had all died ere their time. He found great contentment in marriage to my mother, but he lost her, too, and of the six children she’d borne him, three were stillborn or died in the cradle. Only my brother Cadell, my sister Eleri, and I survived childhood. Cadell died at twenty, thrown from his horse, and when my father wed again, his new wife proved barren, but he was too fond of her to put her aside, even though he no longer had a male heir and his lands could have been forfeit to his prince when he died.”
Eleanor agreed that Rhodri ap Rhys had been visited far more than he ought by the Grim Reaper. Thinking the man might better have been named Job than Rhodri, she said, “So how did he cope?”
“He dealt with his disappointments as he’d dealt with his blind daughter, by seeking to change what could be changed and accepting what could not. He taught me to acknowledge my mistakes, to learn from them, and then put them aside. He never let me forget that the morrow might bring greater glory than yesterday’s ills, for none of us know the Divine Plan of Our Saviour. In that, we are all blind, and see through a glass, darkly.”
Rhiannon smiled again, a smile that spilled sunlight into the dimly lit chamber. “And indeed, good did come with the bad. Ranulf came back to us, filling the hole left in our hearts by Cadell’s death. When we least expected it, my father found a male heir to save his lands and I found joy beyond imagining. And Ranulf…he found what he most needed, a way to heal, to escape a past weighted down with regrets and remorse and guilt. Not a day passes that I do not thank the Almighty for His Blessings, but not a day passes that I do not thank my father, too, for teaching me that there is a time for every purpose under the heaven and the greatest gift we can offer Our Lord God is to pray with a loving, humble heart, ‘Not what I will, but what Thou wilt.’”
Eleanor’s eyes searched the other woman’s face, but she felt letdown, hoping for more than that. “You make it sound so simple,” she said, and Rhiannon shook her head so vehemently that her veil swung from side to side.
“Oh, no,” she said. “It is not simple at all. Indeed, it may be the most difficult task you ever undertake in this life, my lady. But think upon this. What other choices have you?”
If Eleanor had been surprised by Rhiannon’s unexpected visit, she was dumbfounded by the identity of her next visitor. On a cold, overcast day in late December, that same mournful servant announced the arrival of the Lady Emma, sister of the English king.
Emma had taken one disapproving glance at Eleanor’s accommodations and sent the plump, moon-faced Edith to the great hall. “The wench does understand the word for ‘wine’?” she asked, seating herself beside Eleanor with a rustle of silken skirts. “Or is she likely to come back with verjuice or buttermilk?”
“No, ‘wine’ was one of the first words I taught her,” Eleanor said with a smile. “Whatever are you doing here in Wiltshire, Emma? Rhiannon said you were attending Harry’s Christmas Court at Windsor.”
“I was, but I chose to leave earlier than I’d first planned. It was not as entertaining as I’d hoped.”
Eleanor studied her sister-in-law with curious, speculative eyes. They’d always gotten along well enough, although they’d never been confidantes; the twenty-five-year gap in their ages had not been conducive to greater intimacy. She’d always thought Emma was one of the most beautiful women she’d ever seen; like Hal, she’d inherited Geoffrey le Bel’s striking good looks. She was fashionably fair, with cornflower-blue eyes and sunlit flaxen hair hidden now by wimple and veil, blessed with good bones, deep dimples, and an ethereal, delicate appearance that led people, especially men, to miss the steel in her spine. Now she busied herself in placing a cushion behind her back before saying nonchalantly,
“I brought you a New Year’s gift, a tame magpie in a wicker cage. Alas, though, a clumsy servant let it escape.”
“I thank you for the thought,” Eleanor said, although she was not disappointed, for she did not fancy keeping a captive bird as a pet, unable to soar into the sky as God intended. “But if you are returning to Wales, surely Sarum is greatly out of your way?”
“It would be, if I were going back to Wales. But I intend to take ship at Southampton by week’s end, assuming the winds are favorable. I want to visit my son.”
Eleanor remembered that Emma had a small son, born of her first marriage. As the young Lord of Laval, he’d not been able to accompany her into Wales, yet another reason for Emma to begrudge her marriage to Davydd ab Owain. “I am gladdened to see you,” she said, “but I’ll admit to some surprise. Most people seem to fear that the king’s disfavor is contagious.”
Emma’s shoulders twitched in a graceful shrug. “I doubt that Rhiannon had much gossip to share with you, whereas I have enough scandals and rumors and idle talk to entertain you for months to come. Consider it my good deed for the year.”
They were interrupted then by Edith’s return, carefully balancing a tray with wine cups and wafers. She was a good-hearted girl, and beamed when Eleanor thanked her in her own tongue. Motivated as much by boredom as anything else, Eleanor had begun to learn a few phrases of English; on her bad days, she feared that she might be fluent in English by the time her captivity ended, either by release or death.
“I am assuming that you are as innocent of recent happenings as a cloistered nun,” Emma declared, taking a swallow of wine and grimacing at the taste. “Harry’s son Geoff is now the Bishop of Lincoln, as the Holy Father approved his election, and he was formally welcomed into his city in August. But Harry then decided that he should continue with his schooling ere he is actually consecrated and will be sending him to Tours for further study, much to Geoff’s relief.”
Eleanor had always had a good relationship with Geoff, but she was sure that was one more casualty of the rebellion, as badly ruptured as her friendship with Ranulf. She thought it a pity that her husband had not found a destiny for his son that was a more comfortable fit, but she refrained from commenting, not wanting to risk alienating Emma with criticism of her brother.
“I imagine Rhiannon told you of Rainald’s death, and that Richard and Geoffrey had some success against rebels in Poitou and Brittany. It looks as if marriage negotiations for Joanna are on again, and the King of Sicily is sending envoys to the English court in the spring.”
Eleanor frowned, saying nothing. She’d approved of the match, which would give Joanna a crown and a husband likely to treat her well, but now she could think only that if her daughter were sent off to Sicily, she might never see the girl again.
“As for the Clifford slut, Harry makes no secret that she shares his bed, but he has so far refrained from flaunting her at court. When he needs a woman to grace his table or act as hostess, he relies upon Marguerite, most likely in a vain attempt to mollify Hal.”
Rosamund Clifford was the least of Eleanor’s troubles. “‘A vain attempt,’” she echoed. “Are you saying that Harry and Hal are at odds again? It was my understanding that they’d made peace and all was well between them.”
“On the surface, it is,” Emma said, pausing to sip more wine. “They were together day and night this year past, riding the length and breadth of England as they dealt with the duties of kingship. They made a pilgrimage to Canterbury to give thanks to St Thomas, held forest courts in Nottingham and York, forced the Earl of Gloucester to yield Bristol Castle, met with the Welsh princes this summer, then traveled north to receive the allegiance of the Scots king and his barons. I suspect Harry is trying to keep Hal so busy that he does not have time to collect new grievances, but if so, it is not working as well as he’d hoped.”
Eleanor thought it interesting that Emma had dismissed her husband with that casual phrase, “the Welsh princes,” but she was far more intrigued by the possibility of dissention between father and son. “What are Hal’s grievances?”
“The usual complaints-not enough money, not enough time to himself, not enough authority of his own. As long as they are yoked together, Hal is going to be utterly overshadowed
by his sire, and he likes it not. Lately he seems to be looking for reasons to disagree with his father, although he does have the right of it in their squabble about the forest courts. But I find it hard to believe that he is truly so concerned with the injustice of it, think he is just using the issue as a way to assert his independence.”
“What do you mean, ‘the injustice of it’?” Eleanor asked, and Emma smiled, thinking that she sounded more like the prideful Duchess of Aquitaine at that moment than a royal prisoner resigned to her fate.
“During the rebellion, Harry had proclaimed free hunting in the royal forests. But he’s had a change of heart, and he is now amercing stiff fines against those who took him at his word. Even his justiciar protested, producing the royal writ authorizing such trespasses. Harry would not be dissuaded, though, and ordered both barons and clerics into his court as he traveled around the country. Not a popular move for certes, one that has stirred up resentment against him.”
“He must be in great need of money,” Eleanor said thoughtfully, “to resort to such drastic measures. The cost of putting down the rebellion must have been higher than he’d anticipated.”
“I daresay you’re right,” Emma agreed. “But I think he also sees it as a way to reassert the authority of the Crown, reminding his subjects and vassals that the lax days of the past are gone for good. He has always been strong-willed, but he is less amenable to compromise now than he once was, less concerned about the fairness of his decisions. His seizure of the earldom of Cornwall is a good example of that.”
“Rainald’s earldom?” Eleanor paused for a moment to recall the late earl’s family circumstances. He’d claimed the vast earldom through his wife, a great heiress who’d also been unstable of mind. They’d had three daughters and a sickly son, who’d not survived his father, leaving him with a natural son, Rico, who was barred from inheritance by his out-of-wedlock birth. But even lacking a male heir, the earldom should have been divided among his daughters and their husbands.
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